This application for a U.S. Patent is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/797,172 for garments having front and rear panels connected along a minimum of three margins, at least two of which include extension flaps on each side margin of one panel being folded over and attached to the other panel.
Products constructed according to '172 can include garment types as diverse as pants, shirts, vests, gowns, undershorts and underbriefs, etc.
This continuation-in-part application describes the preferred embodiment as a garment for use without an absorbent pad, thus providing only limited absorbency and protection. The basic garment is referred to hereinafter as `briefs`.
In a second embodiment, the briefs are constructed so that they will accept a separate commercially available feminine pad, or in another embodiment are manufactured as an incontinent brief complete with absorbent pad of conventional design, including pervious covering against the user, absorbent core, and impervious covering attached to the inside surface of the brief.
Briefs heretofore described in prior art (Class 2--garments) are normally made from textile fabrics, and being hand sewn or knitted as unitary items, are formed or assembled to have full width front and rear panels, contiguous if knitted, or joined by sewn seams along side margins. Features can include front openings for male urinary functions, but with an expandable continuous elastic waistband rather than an openable panel. Panties for women and underwear for male use have similar construction.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,329,119 is one of the first to describe baby pants with an inner non-porous lining, and having buttons instead of tapes to connect front and rear panels at the top side margins. Patent '119 also shows the general `hourglass` shape so prevalent in state of the art diapers.
The baby pants of '119 are made from textile cloth but had many of the useful features and functional components of current diapers including leg cutouts, front rear and intervening crotch sections, waistband drawstrings instead of waistband elastic, buttons instead of side connector tapes, impervious lining pervious absorbent pad and impervious barrier, leg drawstrings versus leg elastics, etc., but the essential element for absorbency was missing until later.
In the intervening 50 plus years, many new materials, adhesives, elastics, absorbent fluff, absorbent additives, pervious barrier sheets and nonwoven fabrics with improved hand and surface treatment, as well as improved manufacturing techniques based on fabrication of continuous webs have transformed baby garments from hand sewn textile products with an impervious liner to state of the art diapers, briefs, and incontinent products.
The prior art in U.S. Class 128 for sanitary napkins and Class 604 for diapers is replete with examples of the abovementioned improvements and features including the hourglass shape of U.S. Pat. No. 3,461,871 to Foote (1963) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,368,562 to Vogt (1968) and the important addition of leg elastics per U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,003 to Buell.
Thus, while substantial prior art exists for absorbent diaper features, there is scant teaching on incontinent pants or briefs with panel openings that make it easier for the user to put the briefs on, be openable for urinary functions, and with the front `fly` open, and be easily dropped to the user's knees for excretory functions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,733 describes a diaper with a front opening for use in toilet training or for use by incontinent adults wherein the absorbent padding layer (28) is located between the inner layer (19) and outer layer (24), and is held therein by secure attachment of the inner and outer layers 19 and 24 respectively around their entire periphery. The product of '733 thus defines a product having the absorbent pad as part of a garment requiring difficult manufacturing manipulations with a front opening that must be closed by transverse movement of bias cut flaps to the overlapped position.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,615,695 to Cooper describes a combination diaper training pant with the typical hourglass shape, but it also includes absorbent material between the inner pervious sheet and the outer impervious material, again being limited to a product with an integral absorbent pad. Patent '695 shows a front opening in both the front impervious panel and the inner pervious absorbent padding.
In the instant invention, a front opening is constructed by longitudinally overlapping half width webs with the advantage that one or both of the marginal edges (flaps) can be enclosed with folded strips that define a `reinforced` front fly without further processing of materials except along longitudinal lines until the product is assembled and ready for separation into discreet units, thus being well adapted for high speed fabrication.